We spring like tiger. LIKE LASER BEAM MADE OF TIGER!

On our last episode, our ragtag band of plucky survivalists was about to be assaulted by a scraggly band of motorcycle marauders. We decided that rather than wading into battle on our shaking little chicken legs, we’d unlimber our trusty rifle and take aim at the vandals. Unfortunately it looks like at least one of them went to the Jean Claude Van Damm School of Fighting and Comportment:

We done been KICK-SERVED, mofos!

Thus we find ourselves exactly where we did not want to be: Pitting our shriveled manhood against Bald Tatto Guy. I’ve been there, my friends, and believe me, it’s not fun. Not fun at all.

Resigning myself to another “Time to pick another adventure and hope we don’t die so fast this time” post, I nonetheless gamed it out.

On the first round we are at a -4 Combat Skill deficit. By my rough estimation that’s like throwing Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory” into a pit fight with a hungry Kardashian. I roll a 4, resulting in 3 damage to him and 4 for us. Not a good start since we begin combat with only 12 END while he has 27. Again, nerd vs. peckish yet surprisingly beefy pop star.

The next round goes better, however, and I roll a 10! Plus, with our Combat Knife we get a +2 to our skill, doing even MORE damage. He’s now down to 17 and we are at 8. He’s still healthier after getting stabbed than we have ever been in our whole lives.

Round 3 brings us a solid 7, resulting in 6 damage to him (for a total of 11 END) and us a mere 1, for a total of 7.

On Round 4, apparently I chose to use my luck in this stupid contest instead of buying a lottery ticket — you all own me 24 million dollars! — as I again get a 10! We take nary a scratch versus his massive 7 points of damage. Around this time I get the astounding feeling that we might actually live through this!

Finally we close out combat with a pathetic roll of 2, which is nonetheless enough to bury our knife in his bald skull while bringing us to the general neighborhood with 4 total mighty points of remaining END. At this rate a radioactive Twinkie will do us in, but we are gloriously, magically alive!

Let’s see if the fire awaits us …

OK, stealth, stealth, I’m sure I have this somewhere … Ah yes! An astounding “3”. When figuring in our stuffed-full pack, that brings us to … 0. That’s right, we have ZERO stealth! Recalling my elementary school lessons, when adding 0 to my random roll of 3 I get … carry the one … 114! No, wait, that doesn’t seem right … 3! Yes, that’s it, 0+3 is definitely 3. Or 5. Let’s go with 3.

How did I not know they would raise my hopes to a heavenly high, only to crush them like a bug beneath a horrendous low?

So that’s it. We’re dead at the hands of mutant bikers from Texas. Strangely, I feel like this may be how my real life draws to a close as well.

But hey, at least we met some interesting folks along the way and got to fondle the mouldering corpse of an endlessly howling DJ, right?!

Feel free to sound off in comments about this adventure, and whatever you’d like to see us try next.

An interesting way to put it, Jeff. Especially given how this adventure pulled a giant Bazinga on us by letting us survive mortal combat against a superior foe, only to gun us down like punks with nary a chance of survival just shortly after.
I was pretty sure we would die in this one from the beginning. I’m actually amazed we got this far (one ignored disaster aside). But maybe we should just go back to our beloved Lone Wolf again.
Actually, I don’t care, really. Riffing these CYOA books is the primary fun. Success or failure is kind of secondary to that.

Dan: As much as I’d like to go back the Lone Wolf, I think we need a break from the sadistic writtings of Mr. Joe Dever. What other options do we have? Maybe we can do a vote to choose the next one?

Sure thing. I prefer eBook versions, which I think would include the Kindle, which I ought to be able to read on their Cloud app … I think. Then I could cut and paste in the text. Having the physical books is a pain to keep up with and to type.

The link is here for the Kindle CYOA books. Pick the ones you like and we can do them.

So, that was the last life of “Cal The Catman”??
I guess he used the rest of his nine lives just getting up in the morning and shaving.

Although I miss Lone Wolf just as much as the next guy, I don’t miss getting my butt handed to me by fishermen 😉
I am however still quite interested in finding out whether Lone Wolf did return to revisit that flirty mouse-women in the secret “Whiskers Town”…

X-stacy:
I like those choices as well, Dan, but I think I’ll vote Zombocalypse Now.After all, we didn’t see much success against living Texas bikers; I don’t think making them zombies will help us.

I actually think that dead Texas bikers will give us even more grief!
But I support a zombie story – however, I suggest we put a lot of points in “running” and “stealth” this time around 😉

Choose your own adventure books are a bit frustrating for me. They are designed to be extraordinarily lethal to enforce rereads so you get your money’s worth. Anything we choose will be full of arbitrary death, so go for the most interesting setting you can find.

I like the sound of “Beer, Women, and Bad Decisions.” Also, I think that book my be interesting. Also, I absolutely LOVED the Time Machine series growing up, so that “American Revolutionary” would be awesome. Or we could go with “You are the Messiah,” because who doesn’t like blasphemy? (And we could finally answer the question “What Would Jesus Do?” for ourselves.)